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Imposing Their Will Inside
Through the first half, the Clippers’ shoddy defense could have left them behind by double digits. Rather, they converted 9-of-17 3-pointers to stay close. After the halftime break, however, Rivers and company clearly made a conscious decision to limit the 3-point attempts and impose their will inside, exploiting Dallas’ poor rim protection.

The Clippers only attempted six 3-pointers in the second half, while Griffin and Jordan combined for 32 second-half points. Paul usually carries the team in crunch time, and with him sidelined, others had to step up. We saw Griffin carry the fourth-quarter load against Utah and he did so again, but tonight Jordan did too. Jordan? He never does that. Dallas has surrendered 64.2 percent shooting in the restricted area all season, so tonight D.J. wisely lived there. His shot chart proves as much.

(Photo via NBA.com/Stats)

– Aaron Fischman

Targeting DeAndre
1. By my estimation, DeAndre Jordan was targeted 11 times tonight, whether as the roll-man in the pick-and-roll, cutting to the basket or even in the post. The weaker post defender is often pinned to Jordan so teams can focus their attention to Griffin.

In the cases of smallball, that means a much smaller defender is hidden on Jordan. With the second unit, and now with Chris Paul sidelined with injury, it might behoove the Clippers to investigate exploiting this mismatch when it presents itself. Griffin could function as the high-post composer, a la Marc Gasol, and become the primary facilitator of the offense.

I mentioned this on ClipperBlog Live, but Andre Drummond and DeAndre Jordan are effectively the same player on offense, even down to their struggles from the free throw line. But Drummond averages almost double the field goal attempts per 36 minutes. Giving Jordan three or four opportunities every game may prove fruitful.

2. Griffin was being fronted again in the post tonight and Crawford was unable to make an entry pass. He kicked it to DeAndre at the top of the key who typically does not look to assist, immediately passed it back to Crawford. Griffin forcefully motioned for Crawford to pass back to DeAndre for the lob, which is exactly what happened.

Again, this is a textbook method of getting the entry pass in on a fronted post player. And the second game now we’ve seen Jordan empowered to execute the pass.– Andrew Han